


Sansaery at Oxford

by Primtal (Primzahlen)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Interviews, Oxford
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-29
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2018-04-11 20:59:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4452155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Primzahlen/pseuds/Primtal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa is on her interview day to read English Literature at Oxford university. This is meant to be a place of beginnings. Currently, however, it is a place of anxiety, a place of hope - a place in which devastatingly beautiful science students ask to share her de-stressing bench?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sansaery at Oxford

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frontier: First Encounters

So here it is. Oxford. Magdalen. Those two words imagined with an ominous dun-dunn sound effect would most closely convey her current emotional mindset. The painting Guernica, a copy of which hung at her request near her mantelpiece could probably also have aptly expressed it. After all, she only had the pressure of five generations of Starks thriving in this academic establishment to juggle with, as well as her very own obliterate-able future. Sansa vowed, were she to be let in in consequence to this interview, she would be the most Oxford soul to ever Oxford. She’d put the arms who had her entire life mostly been employed at holding up books (while propped on her elbows for exorbitant periods of time) to good use. Lacrosse maybe, rowing certainly. She decided she’d abuse her liver to its very extremes, aggravating her body while she laughed raucously about the nationwide hurt inflicted by a Tory policy, or maybe the distant possibility of low quality caviar. She would, soul shaking at the thought, penny.'Penny' being used as a verb. Was she being unfair? Certainly. Her stomach was revolting against her and she needed a scapegoat. And this would be … society. Society was to blame.

Sansa looked around the room of waiting interviewees. She imagined herself a sociological explorer, scrutinising the new species she wished to compile. Strewn liberally were the  _Homo Sapiens Trepidus_  , sitting in isolation while hurriedly reviewing notes, fingers trembling erratically and hair in disarray. The notorious  _Homo Sapiens Collectedincrisisus_  , which she was too fearful to compile the key features of. The  _Homo Non-Sapiens_  ,   _Homo Sapiens Disturbinglyfriendlyus_  also appeared and then, quite distinctly, the  _Homo Sapiens_..  _Sexyperson_. She was quite striking. In the corner engrossed in a novel who’s cover Sansa couldn’t quite make out. Her beauty seemed deep, almost. Not merely a matter of the flesh, but coded into her every cell, drafted into her bones. It seemed to disagree with every standard, every parameter of beauty. The carefully chosen outfit, the prim hairstyle, the manicure were a poor disguise for the unruly, unabiding nature of this beauty. Look at me, Sansa chortled, one pretty face all the trigger I need to become a pseuodoscience-spewing fully-fledged English student. The girl turned the page, and Sansa was able to ascertain that she was reading a moderately battered copy of The Importance of Being Earnest. The Importance of Being Earnest! Another English student hopeful then; the enemy. No, the Enemy. As a Stark, she knew it was her duty never to let her defences fall. Her younger brother’s good luck gift had proven that.

She’d been packing for her interview trip two nights ago when he’d hobbled into her room. At ten years old he’d fallen off the house roof  as the result of a rogue air current. That’s how they described the phenomenon, at least, although clearly bizarre in its unlikeliness. Doctors, cutting-edge technology, her mother’s whispered prayers had ensured that he would not suffer unduly, but he had to move with a crutch. He would always have to now. He seemed to channel the energy he used to spend lovingly marking the roof of their mansion into his art, now producing  dozens of stunningly accurate birdeye view paintings of their house and its grounds (winterfell, it had been cheerfully called for generations, they had pretended it was a castle in their childhoods). This time, however, the canvas Bran was clutching was another vista entirely. Oxford. The focus of his drawings had never before strayed this far from home. It was harder for him to paint things farther away, the effort taken multiplying every mile his visions took  him away from Winterfell. Sansa had no idea why his paintings and his attitudes towards them had this internal isolated logic, but could feel that it held true. She knew he’d probably suffered from the effort required to so perfectly depict a place a countryunit away. Sansa had gulped as she picked up his struggles. She looked into his eyes. They say ‘march on’.

She would not disappoint, and she gritted her teeth in the waiting room. She couldn’t help thinking this would be a dementor feast, the room delighting in the absorption of most of the potential futures of these students. Agitation aplenty.

And all of a sudden she couldn’t stand it. Maybe she did have the Stark's sound impulsiveness after all. Sansa strolled haughtily past the other candidates and decided to explore the grounds. She did have an hour to wait, after all. And hour to disperse and wreck at her own hands.

Feeding Society to her intestines clearly hadn’t done the job.

There were lot of corridors in Oxford. Even crossing grassy areas, where they seemed unnecessary and unwelcome. Everything tonally, was grey.  _Many roads, roads not taken, death, failure, Stop Sansa._  The paddock looked innocuous enough, so she decided to venture into it. Onto a solid looking bench overlooking a body of water. She should probably acknowledge nature more as an arts student, but she had never understood it’s potential to inspire verse upon verse or terrifying prose. Human struggle, understanding, solidarity were her waterfalls, gardens and poppies. Of this particular grass she could only say that, to her inexpert mind, it looked like it was photosynthesizing efficiently. Which she approved of. She huddled herself in the December breeze, as it protected from the cold her red hair finally being of more use than just a garish identifier. And looked up.

 Ah, the snake in her garden of Eden, of course. Ms devastatingly beautiful was also stalking the grounds with a group of add-on humans. A nasty-faced blonde young man, probably a Patrick or a Timothy, and two other girls all followed her. One had waist long hair and the other a rather beaky-looking nose. The latter held herself in a way Sansa knew her sister Arya would have mocked, parodying her peacock-like moves and self-conscious laughs to the Starks, an easy crowd. The knowledge that she would miss Arya at university had come early this year, and had been something of a surprise. They hadn’t shared a cozy few initial years together, each ridiculing the other’s interests and sure in the superiority of their own. Sansa couldn’t understand Arya’s physicality, her anger and spirit. She shied away from the rugged games Arya played, and had scorned her for her love of martial arts. Arya had played her part as well, revolted at Sansa easy enjoyment of poetry, music and books. If stars of a mythical Greek or Norse tale, Sansa could easily predict the ending. Childhood anger held together by familial duty, a growing rivalry, some dark tragedy to permanently shift the dynamic of the family (a parental death would do nicely) and a final showdown.

Thankfully, 21st century England was much more lenient. The vicissitudes of the teenage years saw them grow back together, start to cling for the comfort of each other’s experience. Arya had even started to teach her how to kickbox, laughing ruefully at Sansa’s frequent mistakes. And she had consented to read one of Sansa’s favourite stories, proceeding to wear a ribbon in her hair exactly as the heroine in Sansa’s tale had. It was a fond memory. University, Oxford or not, would be a shame in some ways.

It was then that Sansa felt a tap on her shoulder.

‘Psst, Do you mind if I join you on the bench?’ no dictionary could classify that as a smile. Maybe a smirk, one conscious of the effect it had. Sansa felt her cheeks betray her.

‘Of course, what happened to your… entourage?’ as the stunning girl sat down and crossed her legs, lithely feline-like in her movements. Sansa internally decided she was a panther; slick, deadly, alluring.

She moved her head closer to Sansa’s conspiratorially ‘I’ve had to dissect them. In the name of science. Thought it'd give me an edge in the interview.' She laughed as Sansa looked more flustered than ever ‘Sorry. I don’t usually reveal my murderous inclinations so early on. I’m Margaery.’

‘Sansa, ’ she gulped out.

‘Joffrey was flaunting his kindergarten bully qualities a bit more forcefully than even I am comfortable smoothing over, I had to take refuge. I apologize if I’m intruding any pre-interview ritual. Meditation perhaps? Voodoo? Prayers for a plague of locusts to befall the families of the other interviewees?’

‘Only in the literal sense.’ Sansa smiled. ‘Is Joffrey your … boyfriend?’

‘What a sick world that would be! Tied neither by blood nor by affection.’ She explained, taking off her beanie and flattening her hair in an airy manner ‘ His father is my father’s boss. Classically odious power dynamics. Mostly I smile brightly and’ she looks at Sansa ‘firmly focus on how atrociously the media will pick on him if he ever succeeds his father’s office. They're not very alike, let it just be said. What is your family up to?’

‘This and that.' not quite sure how to classify the Starks' raison d'etre 'Is your family in the media as well then?’

‘Oh no, my grandmother ruthlessly manages a flour company. Everyone else just cowers about in her vicinity, helping around with advertising.’ Sansa secretly thinks it’s unlikely that Margaery has ever cowered, or has ever felt nervous by any definition. Margaery then scrutinized her a while ‘Let me guess, English student?’

‘English student’ Sansa confirmed. ‘English student. Dreamy and flighty. Aspiring novelist. Soon to be the unemployed scum of the country.’ She smiled, picked up a stone and flung it into the pond. It helped with nerves, Sansa told herself. ‘You?’

‘Physics.’ The tattered The Importance of Being Earnest copy must have been only a balm, a soothing distraction. That was… endearing. Sansa chastised herself for not having been able to see her as a person with multitudes, doling out the narrow-mindedness that she so often criticized in others. ‘Firmly and fanatically physics. We should practice interviews though, a chance to delve into your English mind. First of all, why English?’

‘I’ve always been… fascinated with stories. Which makes me something of an outcast in my family’ Sansa smiled ‘The lot of them destined to become medics, lawyers’ she wrinkled her nose ‘engineers. But, well have you read The History Boys? That quotation ‘The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - that you’d thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you’ve never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it’s as if a hand has come out, and taken yours.’’ She blushed again ‘Well I think understanding myself, understanding my grounding, understanding, dare I say, humanity would be a worthy pursuit. It feels like the only important thing, and everything else falls horribly short.’ While she said this she thought of her sister Arya, who was hard pressed to read anything that wasn’t a comic book or both fiercely compact and action packed. Robb hadn’t touched fiction in years and her father had called Candide a ‘nice little adventure’. Sansa realized that she’d drifted off, and worriedly turned back to Margaery, who she found staring intently at her.

Margaery’s voice seemed gentler now, less… contrived. ‘And your favourite books?’

‘Oh I’ll read just about anything. Hardy, post-modernist mulch, Austen, Machiavelli, Donohue. I’ve only recently grown out of medieval stories. Used to lucid dream myself into them, then lose control and find myself in hostile, gritty universes. But the stories of valiance were my favourite. Quests and adventures and glamour and court and – ‘

‘Knights in shining armour’ Margaery put it almost as a question.

‘ _And_  princesses with long chestnut curly hair’ Sansa finished determinedly. Margaery raised her eyebrow, she seemed to like this response. ‘Your turn, physics?’ Sansa nudged Margaery’s arm, then instantly regretted it. Too forward?

Margaery seemed to taste the question, slowly turning it over. ‘Well, the universe is so…’ She started again ‘Human culture is pleasant I agree, it’s interesting and varied. But I know a lot of people. I understand them. The universe is just a little more… fundamental. I mean, yes, as a kid it was all ‘I want to learn about the cool things in space and Star Trek and shit’ but now’ she looked more animated than Sansa had ever seen her ‘ it’s the only way I could ascribe … meaning to my life? Answer all the questions I’ve always wanted to ask. Nature is not what you and I think it is, it’s beautifully, almost offensively complex. And common sense realism, taking things at face value, is a farce.’ She seemed to regain her composure and smiled ‘Of course, the interviewers won’t be getting  _that_  answer. I have a highly polished one ready. Little less honesty, little more chutzpah.’ Sansa drank in her words, holding up her head on her bent knees.

‘Also, after our respective three years of happiness, you can look forwards to a comely income while I fully expect to be a financial burden to my brother all my life.’ 

Margaery laughed ‘Oh yes, handsomely repaid for recklessly playing with expensive quantum-related equipment.’

‘Raise you: Shivering in a candlelit room for years, fervently writing out a cynical ‘masterpiece’ the publishing agency with have a hoity-toity glass of wine guffawing over.’

‘Easy. Distastefully and very accidentally finding myself in the biology department. Knocking over a vial of some deadly disease. Almost causing a world epidemic. Getting entangled into somehow heroically averting said catastrophe and coming home to see I’ve completely missed out on participating in posting a vehement #distractinglysexy tweet.’

‘Hm, hard to top' Sansa mused of it. 'Never being able to afford sushi.’

‘Well, you win’ Margaery smiles. Sansa can’t help but be charmed.

‘In fact I may have to live off the raw rat my puppy Lady valiantly tries to catch for me’

‘A puppy? Do show’

Sansa rifled through her backpack. Over her carefully compiled thoughts on the works of Virginia Woolf and the far less delicately arranged northern memorabilia her family had insisted she carry with her. Even Rickon had teased them about it. ‘Here’s a bit of the north to carry along with you’ he gruffly imitated Ned’s voice, offering her a writhing lump of earthworms.

Sansa found her phone and turned it around for Margaery to view the background screen. Lady was crouched in a corner, ready to spring on a ball of yarn in the forefront.

‘How do you manage to accomplish anything with something that cute beside you?’ Margaery exclaimed. ‘And what kind of breed is it?’

‘Oh yes, it’s dire. A whoodle. Lady demands to be played with.’ Sansa tried to treat the matter of her pup with the same briskness parents talk of their progeny, light-heartedly fending off praise. ‘Your lock screen?’

‘Nothing as adorable. Here’s the fam at crimbo’ she laughed at Sansa confusion ‘we’ve finally hit the northern/southern linguistic divide. Anyways here we are.’ Sansa curiously looked into the phone. There was Margaery, looking unsurprisingly splendid in a white flowery gown and a delightfully tacky Christmas hat. Finally a chance to stare unreservedly. Her arms were around two fine looking men on either side that Sansa oddly already didn’t particularly care for, and the rest of the humans were too far removed from Margaery’s frame to look upon at all. The Margaery smirk arrested her attention so. ‘My grandma, excellent matriarch. My brother, myself, my brother’s boyfriend and my parents. All of whom are cumulatively inferior to your Lady.’

‘They seem festive’ Sansa tried to be equal to Margaery’s courteousness.

‘Definitely. If festive is taken to mean yearforgettingly drunk, bawdily joking and heartily full’ Margaery tossed her phone back into her bag. ‘Of course I’m not sure celebratory events at university will be any more intellectual.’

‘Well that’s just calling out for me to relate all my brother’s formal pennying stories’

‘Pennying?’Margaery laughed, surprised.

‘The act of dropping a one penny coin into the drink of another at formal hall, thereby morally urging them to down that very same glass. If not done, one will be reprimanded by a horde of slurring freshers. And/or the universe will break.’

‘Not before I’m done wasting my future on its laws it won’t. I’ll enforce pennying downing with a steely resolve.’ She hastened to add ‘Dependant on consent given previous to the event, of course.’

‘I’ll enjoy that’ Sansa smiles ‘if we get in.’

‘I’ve been sorted into Ravenclaw on Pottermore. I have no intention of being anywhere else next year. Nerdily writing emails to my previous science teachers about the awesome physics I learn. Being socially ostracized and drinking my existential crises away. Doing both simultaneously, even. And they’d  be fools not to pick you.’ Her eyes sparkle a bit.

The very idea of Margaery not being a socially revered is ridiculous to Sansa.‘I should probably inform you that I’ve started doubting everything you say.’

‘Well you won’t be convinced by more of my talking then. Come on, let’s practice another interview question, mine is in ten minutes and I have to head back soon.’ She straightened her back, flipped her hair (yes, the action was mesmerising to Sansa). ‘So Sansa – ‘

‘Stark’ Sansa interceded.

‘Stark.’ Margaery repeated, understandingly. ‘So Sansa Stark, what would you say are your biggest flaws?’ she looked at her expectantly.

‘Flaws?’ Sansa had this in her notes somewhere. But by all the gods she could not remember. ‘I am timid and gullible. I’m easily offended, inclined to obsessive interest in others, often too fully and completely immersed in my passions with a tendency to completely disregard things I find uninteresting.’ she recited quickly. Honesty was the best policy surely.

‘And I’m a perfectionist’ she added.

Margaery’s mildly stunned expression burst into laughter. ‘That answer will put them all in urgent need of some tea.’

‘Well I hope so, having pulled out all the stops.’

‘Full marks. Use that and I might be convinced out of heartlessly pennying you all night at our first formal.’

‘I’ll keep it in mind’ Sansa smiled.

Margaery checked her watch again  apologetically ‘It’s me in five minutes. I must leave.’ She stood up and ruffled off any dirt her long skirt may have collected. Nothing. It must be in awe of her as well.

‘Good luck. If you’re going to need it that is. I’m not in a habit of wasting my good luck.’

Margaery smiled again, but didn’t directly reply. Hesitantly she moved her head close to Sansa’s. She smelt flowery. Not of roses, none of their pungent bitterness. But as an intoxicatingly wild shard of nature. While Margaery had clearly taken pains to inhibit the devastatingly outspoken quality of her appearance, her scent was gloriously unconstrained. Every nerve ending of Sansa’s was teased. She’d started condemning this cliché in her lined up poetry books long ago, but in her hypnotised state of mind it was the only thing that she could grasp at; she felt completely alive.

Slowly Margaery whispered in her ear ‘Thanks for the distraction from my state of anxiety. As for accommodation, I’ll be ticking Grade 3, room with washbasin, as close to the cafeteria as possible.’ She then looked up, called at the girl with the waist long hair and gave Sansa a last glance of indeterminate expression. ‘See you in October.’ She wafted away to join her home friend. Presumably on the way to her interview room. Sansa only realized moments later that she hadn’t bid her farewell.

It took Sansa half an hour to rid herself of Margaery’s trance. Just in time to head over to a gloomy-looking room to give a convincing handshake and prove that she was human, capable of persistently debating the director of studies’s views on Emily Dickinson and a loyal fan of the Oxford comma.

Arguably, however, it took far longer than that. As she boarded the coach back north she could not help but feeling like a British 30s woman, having just sent off her darling to the war. Off for a few months, perhaps never to meet again. The part in which they’d only met each other a few spellbinding minutes the only discrepancy.

Sansa took out her red marker and, unthinkingly, wrote the miscarried phrase out on her wrist.

_Till October then, Margaery._

**Author's Note:**

> My first Sansaery fanfiction. Hope I didn't get the University of Oxford details too incorrect. My brother who attends it looked it over (I'm starting to doubt he gave it any attention whatsoever though)! Not sure whether I should continue with other chapters or not.


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